The initial stages of designing a new system are critical, as the choices we make can either enable future agility or lead to limitations. I recently encountered an interesting perspective (in a blog post by Gregor Hohpe) on the concept of “Lock-in”:

“Lock-in describes the degree to which technical or non-technical dependencies on a specific vendor, product, version, architecture, platform, skill set, legal framework, or even ingrained mental models create significant friction, cost, and risk when considering a transition to a different viable alternative. It is not a binary situation but rather a spectrum of constraints that can impact an organization’s agility, innovation velocity, and overall business value.”

This definition shows that proactively understanding and addressing the various dimensions of lock-in is vital to ensuring future flexibility and strategic optionality. The key, of course, lies in how we translate this understanding into actionable strategies to overcome potential lock-in.

Reference

Hohpe, G. (2019, September 9). Open source software lock-in. MartinFowler.com. Retrieved from https://martinfowler.com/articles/oss-lockin.html